


and i know you mean more to me

by pinuspinea



Series: Swan Lake remixes [18]
Category: Swan Lake & Related Fandoms, Лебединое озеро - Чайковский | Swan Lake - Tchaikovsky
Genre: Betrayal, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, Fairy Tale Retellings, Infidelity, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29963949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinuspinea/pseuds/pinuspinea
Summary: There are many unexplained details in their story, but one major question remains: isn't it strange that the sorcerer knew how to make other people look like his swan queen?Or, von Rothbart reaches a new low.
Relationships: Odette & Swan Maidens, Odette/Von Rothbart (Lebedínoye Ózero | Swan Lake), Von Rothbart/Original Female Character(s), Von Rothbart/Swan Maidens
Series: Swan Lake remixes [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824241
Kudos: 7





	and i know you mean more to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nanasalt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanasalt/gifts).



> To nanasalt who posed the question and kicked my brain into overdrive. I hope you're happy now. Here's the reading material alongside with your public shaming and blaming.

To call him a good man would be a falsehood, because he most definitely isn't _good,_ and even the _man_ part is debatable by now. Still, this is a new low even for him.

He tries to not look at the face of the prostitute he has hired for the afternoon too closely, simply focusing on chasing his own pleasure. If he almost closes his eyes, the girl vaguely resembles Odette. The hair is slightly darker than hers, the skin much more golden, the proportions of her limbs slightly off. It's a good enough resemblance if he just doesn't look at it too carefully.

But the eyes are all wrong. There is none of the wide wonder in this girl's eyes, none of the quiet pondering he is so used to seeing in Odette's eyes.

He spills into the girl with a groan, gathers himself, and gets dressed while the girl looks at his back.

"Anything else I could do to you, sir?" she asks coyly, getting up while still bare, touching him with casual familiarity and the feeling of wrongness surges underneath his skin yet again.

"No," he says, suddenly exhausted. "This was more than enough."

Von Rothbart leaves as suddenly as he came, like a stranger in the night. The brothel is far enough from the lake that Odette should never be able to hear of his indiscretions. Still, he wonders what would happen if she learned that he searched for another girl who looked just like his swan queen just to have that pale imitation of what he truly wants.

She'd probably refuse all touch from that point onward even if it meant that she'd spend the rest of her long life trapped in the form of a swan.

He changes forms easily and takes to the sky as soon as he's out of sight. This forest continues all the way back to the lake, but here it is less moulded by his magic. The closer he flies home, the more the trees change.

The lake is where he left it. Odette is on the shore, asleep in her feathered form.

He lands next to her and stomps just loudly enough that she wakes up with a surge. Her eyes catch his form. He goes to her and touches her head quickly.

His hands feel like they will sully her. He steps away as she changes, still lying prone on the shore.

He sits down next to her and says nothing, his eyes locked by the silvery gleam on the surface of her lake.

* * *

He manages to shame himself enough to not go back to the city for years after that first time. Von Rothbart manages to hide it from Odette, manages to remain calm and worthy of forgiveness, manages to be a gentleman around her.

It takes up more than what little resolve he has to remain careful around her. The nights are tiring in a completely different manner now that his imagination is full of half-dreams, half-memories of what it might be like to lay lingering kisses on her skin and to caress her how no man has caressed her before.

He may not completely be a human anymore, but he most certainly is a man. It's enraging and frustrating and a million other words he doesn't want to say aloud.

He doesn't want to hurt her. He doesn't want to defile her.

It starts with a passing thought of how he could be satisfied for a much longer time if his dreams could be realised somehow, if Odette would just accept him. Like so often, that thought twists and turns in his head until it is almost unrecognisable.

He could make it more real, he realises. He could make another girl look more like Odette. All he needs to find is a girl who would lay with him that is much more like Odette in mind rather than in resemblance.

His magic can make the girl _look_ like Odette.

Von Rothbart's browsing his books quicker than he can stop himself, already figuring out how to make such a spell. It wouldn't have to be permanent. It only needs to last for a certain while, just long enough that he will be satisfied.

He whips up the spell embarrassingly quickly. He's worked harder on it than on other, more important spells.

He should be ashamed of himself, but the only thing he feels is a nerve-wrecking anticipation that thrums in his veins.

Von Rothbart leaves the lake the next morning after saying goodbye to Odette. She heads over to her reeds and hides from the sun there. He lets his eyes rest on the sight for a moment longer before changing his own form and taking to the sky.

He's at the city quicker than he's ever been before.

It's been years since the last time he visited. Things have changed, that much is easy to see. There are new buildings, new people, a whole new atmosphere.

There are new things, but the brothels are where they have always been. Von Rothbart slips inside the first one, speaks with the matron, moves onto the next. His request is specific. He is not willing to compromise.

The third brothel hosts a girl promising enough that he is willing to look at her. When the matron brings her over, von Rothbart looks at her eyes, her nervous face, her youthful appearance.

The girl is nothing like Odette in looks, but her manner is close enough.

"Her," he degrees and pays what the matron requests.

The girl looks at him uncertainly as she leads him to the room upstairs. He gently touches her hand, and in his eyes, she changes. The shimmer of magic remains around her, making her blurred, but he has his Odette in front of him.

He leans over and kisses the girl and tries to forget she isn't Odette.

She kisses him back, her uncertain lips becoming more certain by the minute, and he takes her to the bed and caresses skin that tastes just like his own magic.

* * *

Instead of taking off the edge, he's worse than before. His memories are consumed by the image of the fake-Odette smiling as his lips travelled down her body, as he caressed and worshipped her body like he would that of the real Odette.

No, it hasn't helped at all. Instead, when he's around Odette, he's constantly thinking about those memories and how it would feel like with her. He wonders how she would respond, how her kisses would taste like, what it would be like to have her gasp from his touch.

The real Odette next to him has been looking at him for much too long before he even realises it.

"Is something troubling you?" she asks. Her voice is quiet. It always is quiet.

He wonders what he'd have to do to get her to gasp and to moan out _his_ name when –

He pushes the thought hastily out of his mind.

"Nothing that concerns you," he murmurs and tries to control himself.

She pulls away, but he's been expecting that for some time already. She's been so needy for him lately. It's been one of those seasons when she has been able to forget his discretions and act like they are friendly, but that never lasts. There always comes a time when she pulls away, when dark thoughts spread into her mind, when she cries and is lonely and hurts.

He doesn't know how to stop it. He's tried.

She wraps her arms around her legs. He glances at her from the corner of his eye. Each passing year changes her, but by now, there isn't much to change. The old her has been almost completely consumed by his magic, twisted into this new version.

In his mind, there are two Odettes, or more accurately, two real Odettes. There is the girl she used to be, the one who spoke so openly and saw beauty in everything, and then there is this sad and quiet woman who pulls away from him.

Sometimes, he almost feels like the girl he fell in love with is there. Those are the easiest times to forget his twisted dreams and the want that burns his soul. When she is like that, he feels too afraid to touch, to sully her. But when she is like this, her eyes so dark, her body so fragile, von Rothbart just wants to have those eyes softening for him, feeling her shiver in anticipation as his fingers roam the contours of her body.

He wants to make her forget her sorrow. He wants to make her his. When she is like she used to be, he can almost pretend he hasn't made any of those mistakes that lead to this.

Autumn is almost there. She so often hates him during the autumn, and he knows why.

There are tears glittering in the corners of her eyes and she tries to discreetly wipe them away, but he notices them. He always sees them even when she doesn't want him to.

There's nothing to do but to wait for the sunrise to arrive just like it has arrived each day during all these years, and when it does, she leaves him.

She doesn't come back, not the next night and not the one following that.

He tries to forget the hurt he feels as he returns to the city and tries to drown his pain in an unachievable dream.

* * *

It helps him for some time. Von Rothbart goes to the city whenever his thoughts are starting to turn too dark, whenever his resolve starts to crumble, and he returns to Odette with as much peace in his soul as he can manage to gather. She often frowns as she looks at him after those trips to the city, but she doesn't ask.

His trips become more and more frequent, and eventually, the prostitute he preferred to take Odette's place becomes too familiar with the profession. He abandons her for someone younger, someone more like Odette.

He leaves a lengthy line of paid women behind him before he is frustrated enough to stop his visits.

What could he do? There isn't anyone who would remain like the image he wants to hold in his mind, no one who could keep up the act quite like he wants it. He sighs in frustration and runs a hand through his hair. He's not going to go to Odette. She doesn't deserve being dragged into his world, not in this way.

He still wants her as a wife, not as some poor girl he lies with until he's satisfied.

He is already on edge. It's getting increasingly difficult to tolerate her presence, the smell of her hair, the touch she sometimes lays on his arm just to feel the presence of another human being. He won't hurt her. He won't force her.

There's really nothing that could quite compare to Odette, he realises as he throws himself into a wingback chair and sulks while staring at his towering bookshelves. He won't be satisfied by a poor imitation played by someone who doesn't even resemble Odette like he wants them to resemble her.

It would be easier to train an empty husk to act like Odette rather than get the prostitutes to act like he wants them to.

The thought enters his mind, but instead of leaving it as soon as it came, it lingers. He wonders about that for a long moment. Could he create a husk, a being like his Odette, a closer imitation than any human being could be? Could he mould his magic into such a shape? He's already gotten the appearance more or less correct. All he'd need is some more magic to get the behaviour right and something to make those husks permanent.

He gets up and starts browsing through his books, and he only notices that night has come once the sun has set and his eyes can no longer see the curled letters.

He hurries outside and sees Odette already waiting on the shore, restless and afraid.

"I'm sorry," he murmurs as he touches a wing that turns into a hand. She blinks. Their fingers almost touch. "I didn't notice the passage of time."

She looks at him, and then she settles onto the shore, staring at the water. Tonight, there is a longing in her for the life she used to hold. She curls up in on herself and stares at the water, and silently, he goes as far away from her as he can and turns his eyes away but never forgetting where she is.

She is there, so near yet so impossibly far away, and he subtly studies her once again until he has memorised her like this, sad and pondering, on a night when she longs for companionship.

An hour before dawn, she comes to sit by his side and presses her head against his shoulder. He doesn't move. She wants companionship, but if he reminded her of who he is, she would flee once again. Nights like these are the hardest ones. She longs for touch, yet not his touch. She longs for companionship, yet not his companionship.

It's maddening, being chosen time and time again yet not quite how he wishes to be chosen.

"You're planning something," she murmurs. "You're only this distracted when you're planning something."

There's no point in denying it, so he doesn't bother.

They remain there until dawn takes her away from him yet again.

* * *

He works while she sleeps, hidden away from her eyes. His experiments take longer than he thought they would, but he still tries, still works on them, still imagines Odette in front of his eyes again and again and again. He coaxes his magic, dips into forbidden spells, and finally, he feels something tangible that he can pull into existence.

The girl in front of him is not quite the swan queen he loves, but closer than any of the hired women. Von Rothbart looks at her for a long moment and studies her in detail, and then he tries again.

The fifth attempt is like he wants. A smirk curls on his lips as he touches her cheek. She looks back at him with Odette's wide and wondrous eyes, and she is smiling, leaning into the touch.

He goes to the lake and finds Odette, and he gifts the swan maidens to her.

They bow respectfully for their queen, but only one looks at von Rothbart for a moment too long.

* * *

It's not that difficult to steal moments away with that swan maiden. Having her there is enough most of the time. He doesn't get any kisses or caresses from his creation for many years, simply satisfied with the knowledge that he could. His creation's eyes follow him whenever he walks with their queen on the shores of the lake.

He creates more of them. Some are youthful like Odette used to be, naive and young and still joyful. Some are quieter, more reserved, reflections of what she has grown to become. Some, some are what he wants Odette to become. He imagines a swan maiden who could be his wife, a swan maiden with soft smiles and hands that hold no tension, a swan maiden he aches to look at. Sometimes, his imaginations are less pure. Some of his creations are seductive, tempting him with their eyes. Some are soft, some hard, but all created in Odette's image.

Eventually, even just companionship isn't enough for him. It never is. He takes his creation to his bed, and if he doesn't focus his eyes completely, she is just like Odette, no discernible difference between the two.

It's simultaneously the best and worst he has ever felt. After it, he lies limply on his bed and wonders if this was a mistake. The swan maiden gathers the clothes that aren't quite clothe-like yet not completely immaterial.

"Do the others know about this?" he wonders aloud. The swan maiden looks back at him and gives him a smile that tells him nothing.

* * *

If the others know, they don't show it. The only thing he is certain about is that Odette doesn't know, and in the end, that is what matters to him.

After a few times, he gets bored with the experience the first swan maiden offers him, but there are so many others to take her place. She doesn't seem bothered by being cast aside, simply accepting the change as if it was nothing she hadn't been expecting.

He woos a softer, more girlish swan maiden after her and makes love to her unhurriedly. He caresses her face and wishes it was Odette underneath his fingers. She kisses his fingers and smiles shyly like a young bride.

She isn't the one he wants, either, so he goes to the next one.

Whenever he runs out of imitations of Odette, he creates new ones. If only the swan queen herself knew just why her flock kept on growing.

* * *

They spend many moonlit nights on the shores of the lake, and many moonless nights walking in the forest, near one another but rarely touching. Their relationship is a strange being, wild and untamed. There are no definitions, not quite yet. What they have is yet to be put into words, but perhaps one day it will be something more tangible.

That night he sits next to her on the shore and looks at her. She is at peace with herself tonight yet still restless, young but ancient, wild yet civilised. She is all these contradictions in one, all the swan maidens brought together.

He kisses her. He doesn't mean to do it, not at first, but she opens her lips and gasps into his mouth, and that is when he knows he couldn't stop even if he wanted to.

She is more real than any prostitute, more enchanting than any swan maiden. She is also inexperienced and afraid, but he is in no hurry, not now. His hurry has been spent during all those years he took out his frustrations on other women and swans.

For a long while, they just kiss. He explores her body with his hands and creates a whole new map in his mind made of touch and the drag of his lips. Eventually, her gasps turn into tentative moans, still quiet.

A satisfied smile curls on his lips as his hands run freer now, less afraid of hurting her inadvertently.

He doesn't speak as he worships her body and shows her just how much he has thought about this, just how much he has wanted this, just how long he has ached to feel her touch like this. Tonight, he can be a gentle lover for his swan queen. Tonight, he doesn't need burning passion. This low heat is enough to finally bring Odette to him.

Her breath catches in her throat and she says his name like it is a prayer. It is the first time she uses his name like that.

He wishes she'd never call him anything other than Wolfgang ever again.

Afterwards, he runs his fingers through her hair and kisses the corner of her mouth. He's never seen her like this before. He's never seen _anyone_ quite like this before, not the hired women nor the swan maidens, but he sees Odette like this.

She stretches a little and then meets his eyes.

There are no words exchanged as they curl up together on that shore. His hand rests against her heart and feels each beat.

Nights do not last forever, not even nights like these. Eventually, morning starts to come. He helps her dress back on and she looks shy as she redresses him. For a moment, the unbroken silence remains between them. For a moment, he wonders.

"Would you?" he asks. Odette looks at her lap, and then she meets his eyes.

For a moment, he hopes.

She lowers her eyes and holds his hand, but nothing more.

He lets her go and thinks about that night for so many nights after that, thinks about the feel of her skin, how she breathed into his mouth, how her fingers held onto him. He thinks about it when she nearly drowns in her own lake, he thinks about it when the swan maidens gather around Odette and try to soothe her sorrows, he thinks about it for long years when there is nothing else than her and the lake.

They come together and separate. He thinks about her. The memory of her skin is a ghost that taunts him. He tries to drown those thoughts with days spent caressing the swan maidens, tries to forget their queen, but his being is consumed by Odette.

There are violent kisses and lingering kisses and soft kisses. They all taste like ash in his mouth. The only kisses that taste like anything are the ones he shares with Odette, and even those are too rare.

* * *

But then there is a change, an intrusion, a stranger. There is a murder and a bed with Odette in it. He looks at that image for a long time. So many swan maidens have lied where she now lies. So many swan maidens have moaned on his bed, but none like their queen, in pain and in hurt and in fear.

He is disquieted by it. He doesn't want this to be his memory of anyone in his bed. He doesn't want to remember Odette like this, so he tries to overcome the memories with holding her in his arms, with kisses shared on the bed, with reading to her until she falls asleep.

He cannot bring himself to have her here. That thought comes with a shame he doesn't want to acknowledge.

She becomes whole again. He takes her back to her beloved lake.

He thinks everything will continue like it has for so far, but it doesn't.

* * *

At first, he thinks Odette has just entered one of her moods when she flees from his touch, from his presence, from everything. He doesn't think about it that much in the beginning, but as the days turn to weeks, he wonders if she knows.

All his desire dies in his throat and leaves a bitter after-taste. He closes his eyes and feels for her presence. He knows she is still in these woods, still somewhere nearby. He knows it like he has always known her presence.

Von Rothbart goes to her and uncovers a secret she's been hiding for him.

With Odette locked in the house with him, he has much less time to think about anything else than her or to get rid of his more impure impulses. He tries his best to keep his hands and his thoughts to himself, but sometimes it's too difficult. She's there, always within reach, and he so wants to touch, to hold, to grasp.

Her eyes are uncertain. This is not how they've ever been before. Neither knows exactly what this is.

He kisses her in the corridors and caresses her skin on the chaise lounge, and he makes love to her against the walls, but he doesn't quite dare to bring her to his bedroom. She looks confused and disquieted because of that, but she doesn't ask.

She is carrying a daughter, his daughter. Some days, he wonders if he has had other children. Odette knows the child intimately, carries her within her womb. She knows that child, but he barely feels her even when he reaches for her with his magic. It's strange.

They will have a child. He is not certain what that quite means.

She finds him. She always finds him. Odette takes one look at him and then lays a hand on his shoulder, and he brings his thoughts back to this time and this room.

Odette is frowning.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks.

"Children," von Rothbart answers quietly.

Does he have other children? He can't be certain. He wouldn't have known if any of those prostitutes got pregnant and carried his child. He wouldn't have felt their presence. Even right next to Odette it's difficult to feel his connection to the child, and this one he knows for certain is his.

He lowers a hand on her stomach and stares at it for a long while. Odette looks at him, curiosity blatant in her eyes, but doesn't say anything.

They move on. He doesn't bring up the topic to her.

Wolfgang doesn't want to hurt her, after all.

* * *

Their child looks like her mother, but little Odile has his darker hair and dark eyes. Some nights he sits by her crib the whole night and doesn't move even when the moon rises and gleams temptingly over the waters of Odette's lake.

He doesn't quite understand himself anymore. He feels torn by some conflict he doesn't even recognise in himself. He likes fatherhood and loves their daughter, so it cannot be that. He likes this permanent reminder of his and Odette's connection. He likes the way Odette looks at their daughter and him, likes the image of a family that reflects from the surface of a still lake.

But there is no family, he comes to realise one night as he holds Odile in his arms and tries to soothe her to sleep. There is no mother to do so. Odette will hold Odile, but something in rocking her to sleep is too painful for her to face.

Odette doesn't want that.

She doesn't want this life.

Very carefully, he lowers Odile into the crib and kisses her brow before he leaves the room.

Wolfgang destroys his own bedroom that night. He tears all the sheets and pillows apart until there are white feathers covering every surface, and he desecrates the bed that has always felt too lonely without Odette by his side.

He returns to Odile's room and sleeps fretfully on the floor and tells Odette nothing about his breakdown.

* * *

Wolfgang spends years thinking about how to tell her the truth, but how could he cause her such pain? He knows his mistakes far too intimately. He knows her. He knows he can never say anything about it all to her, not a single word, yet something in him knows that he will never find peace if he doesn't.

Their daughter is nothing more than a bundle of blankets, then a toddling little babe, then a child who learns to read and who smiles when her first spells succeed. He watches as Odile grows.

He watches as his daughter grows. He watches her, and he feels sick to his stomach when he thinks about his deception.

One night, it's too much even for him. He finds a quiet corner of the forest, a solemn place for solemn thoughts, and sits there for a long while.

There are no swan maidens, not anymore. They don't come to him. They know better by now.

There are no swan maidens, but there is a swan queen.

Odette is beautiful like she always is, her skin perfect, her dress white, her eyes reflecting the moonlight. He takes her in his arms and buries his face in her hair and tries to memorise her like this before he breaks her heart yet again.

The words tumble out. She remains in his arms.

She leaves his arms. Von Rothbart returns home to their daughter and tries not to search the swan queen with his eyes, but he always does.

* * *

There are no more walks in the moonlight, no more shared glances. Odette looks too old. Von Rothbart has trouble speaking about most things to his daughter.

Odile is confused and scared. She notices more than her parents realise. She notices disappearing swan maidens, a flock that dwindles down, feathers and blood on the shores, her mother's serious eyes, her father weaving apologies with flowers and leaving them for her mother to find.

She's too young to change anything.

Sometimes, when the nights are dark, her father sits down on her bed and caresses her brow. He sings songs that are sad and full of longing.

Odile grows up with a longing she doesn't quite understand herself.

* * *

It's a lake that is much different than the lake that the prince stumbles upon. He cocks his crossbow and aims it at a beautiful swan, and he watches a transformation, mesmerised by the sight of a swan queen.

Perhaps it is revenge when the swan queen takes the prince's hand and lets it caress her cheek. Perhaps it is curiosity. Perhaps it is even love. The result remains the same in each case. There is a man, a jealous and bitter sorcerer who watches his swan queen from afar, who looks at the fool of a prince falling in love with her.

There is no flock of swans to cover their bodies from jealous eyes. There are no swan maidens to deceive the sorcerer. There is simply a prince, a foolish prince, and a swan queen who is curious.

In the middle of heated kisses, Odette's eyes snap up. Von Rothbart almost feels like she sees him as the prince leans over her pale, elegant body.

Von Rothbart turns his back on the sight and goes to his house and remains there to stop himself from killing them both. He seethes in rage until the morning arrives, and then he goes to the prince and chases him away from the lake.

Swans do not have human emotions. He still feels like Odette mocks him as he locks her inside the house and then goes to his own bedroom.

His head doesn't clear. He doesn't have a plan, but he has a daughter who wants to go to a ball, and so he takes Odile there even though he will be faced with that prince who laid his hand on what was not his.

At the palace, the party is in full swing when they enter. Von Rothbart lets his daughter walk into the crowd for the first time ever. The prince lays eyes on her just like he laid eyes on her mother. He doesn't see the difference.

The rage he feels changes its shape. The foolish boy doesn't even realise what he sees is not what he stole from him last night. Von Rothbart clenches his fist. He stands there, sipping on champagne, as the foolish prince dances with his daughter.

The prince proposes. Odile, struck by its suddenness, looks at her father. Their eyes meet.

They leave without a word, and the court whispers behind their backs.

* * *

The lake is calm in the moonlight. He stands on the shore and stares at the water when the prince stumbles there.

"You are not welcome here, Siegfried," von Rothbart warns for the first time. Siegfried looks stupefied to be faced with his tutor instead of a swan queen or even a swan maiden.

There are no more swan maidens, no more illusions to cover up what has always been and what will always be. Odette tore the last one apart during the ball and sent the body into the depths of the cool water to lay with her sisters. Underneath the surface of the lake, there is already a graveyard for lovers who were not welcomed.

"Where is she?" Siegfried demands and tries to look brave. "Where is my Odette?"

Von Rothbart closes his eyes and counts to five. After all they've gone through, he has immaculate control of his worse impulses.

"She is not yours, Siegfried," he tells the tumbling boy and turns towards him. Von Rothbart now has given his second warning. Even that isn't enough to clue the boy in.

"She was mine last night!" he cries out. "She was mine! I promised my love to her!"

Von Rothbart narrows his eyes.

"Which one did you promise your love to?" he asks. This will be his final warning. Siegfried stumbles straight into his trap.

"To the swan queen!"

Von Rothbart smiles, and it is the grin of a predator. Too late the prince realises how he has entered a trap. Too late he realises what danger lies on these shores of the lake hidden deep in the woods.

Von Rothbart tears the prince apart and sinks the body to lay with other discarded lovers. In the moonlight, the water is black.

He goes back inside and looks at Odette, and she looks at him before her eyes flicker towards his bloody hands.

"Enjoy your lake, darling," he tells her.

She gets up slowly and walks past him.

Odette doesn't scream or weep as she sinks her hands into the water and lifts them up to see red clinging onto her form.

She's done that so many times before, after all.


End file.
